Publisher's Summary

From the publisher of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies comes a new tale of romance, heartbreak, and tentacled mayhem. Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters expands the original text of the beloved Jane Austen novel with all-new scenes of giant lobsters, rampaging octopi, two-headed sea serpents, and other biological monstrosities.

As our story opens, the Dashwood sisters are evicted from their childhood home and sent to live on a mysterious island full of savage creatures and dark secrets. While sensible Elinor falls in love with Edward Ferrars, her romantic sister Marianne is courted by both the handsome Willoughby and the hideous man-monster Colonel Brandon. Can the Dashwood sisters triumph over meddlesome matriarchs and unscrupulous rogues to find true love? Or will they fall prey to the tentacles that are forever snapping at their heels?

This masterful portrait of Regency England blends Jane Austen's biting social commentary with ultraviolent depictions of sea monsters biting. It's survival of the fittest - and only the swiftest swimmers will find true love!

This is perhaps not everyone's cup of tea. But, if you go into this book with the right frame of mind, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters will be absolutely the most hilarious book you've ever come across. My wife is a devoted Jane Austen fan. Myself? I HATE anything written before 1950, and cannot for the life of me understand why anybody would subject themselves to the torture of a Jane Austen novel. But, amazingly, both my wife and I LOVED this audiobook. We listened to the entirety of the novel during a 2-day road trip, and could not wait to get back in the car in order to listen further. Katherine Kellgren is masterful as the reader.

I loved this adaptation. I'm a huge Jane Austen fan, and know the story QUITE well, and I truly enjoyed this twisted version! I wish someone would turn it into a movie, using today's Steampunk aesthetic- I would LOVE to see it. I highly recommend this book. If you're a serious reader who ALSO just HAPPENS to have a healthy (albeit slightly sick & twisted) sense of humor, GO FOR IT!

This book was amazing! Not as good as PP&Z, but really good! It kept in line with S&S, but added horrid, angry under the sea monsters and instead of a London Season they enjoyed an under water sub station with was just as fashionable as London! The Dashwood girls are still amazing and Willoughby still needs a good smack in the face, so I was pleased with the adaptation. Nay sayers just have no sense of humor. I think Ms. Austen would have giggled at her fame and the use of seamonsters in Regencey England if she were alive today.

I bought this after hearing the free first chapter and thought it was fabulous. The "sea monsters" theme works great for S & S (in which our beloved heroines are already "swimming with sharks" in the form of social-climbers, money-grubbers and hypocrites.) Secondary characters like the Middletons and the Palmers are more vivid and more logically motivated in this than in Austen!

I wish someone would make it into a movie. I loved the "Austen x Jules Verne" images in "Submarine Station Beta" and the "Austen x Lovecraft" themes.

A fantastic treat for someone who loves both Austen and the "Pirates of the Caribbean" films.

I've read 'Pride, Prejudice and Zombies' and unlike that book which was a basic hash job of taking an existing story and adding Zombies and the training of the sisters. Here we have a complete rewrite of the story from the beginning to them. I was really not expecting such a complete job to be done on the book as was done. Here we have the same storyline as the original one. However, it has been completely rewritten to change the setting, add the sea monster story line and keep the same characters in line with who they were and how they were written in the original story of 'Sense and Sensibility.' We still have the sister ending up pretty much as they did in the original story line just with some real twists. I have enjoyed reading this book while driving and now and moving on to 'Persuasion'. I recommend this book over the entire 'Pride, Prejudice and Zombies' which to me having been written by two different authors don't flow at all.

As with every other review, I have to praise the narrator. Katherine Kellgren is as always a superb narrator with her characteristic knack for accents and complicated voicing. I don't think that any British-styled literature can be found lacking with her talents.

This novel is as you may expect a reworking of the Jane Austen original with, well, Sea Monsters! Warning: If you are coming this way because you read Seth Grahame-Smith's Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, take note that this is a bit different in style. Whereas 'and Zombies' was a faithful 'restyling' very close to the original tale, Ben Winters has taken some very broad liberties and turned the world upside down with the Sea Monster crisis and there are times when the story seems to go on a far tangent in the quirk--this may be good news for some readers, but I personally did not like the immodest additions as much.

After listening to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, I expected the same kind of magic from this book. I couldn't get into it, and whether it is the fault of Austen, Winters, or me, I am not sure. It wasn't nearly as captivating as I had hoped it to be, and I think the sea monsters were too forced upon the reader in this novel, as opposed to the zombies in P&P&Z.

Seems like this clever author was really bored when his girlfriend insisted on watching chick flick period dramas and decided to make things a bit more interesting for the guys in the audience. Very funny, clever interwoven storylines!

I will just say upfront that I have never read any Jane Austen - but actually this has made me curious of the "Pride and Prejudice" that has hung around sadly unlistened to in my Audible library for years now.

"Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters", delighted me the entire way though - the measured manners were always undercut with almost casual nautical violence that was way too amusing. I found the narrator to be wonderful at moving back and forth between the two. I don't know if it would be a book for everyone, but I know I loved it.

It started out as a funny take on a classic novel but the sea monster attacks and the human disregard for life get to be too much. Why doesn't Eleanor help the drowning servant?! And why doesn't anyone look for Margaret when she disappears?

This is the first Audiobook I have given up on in four years of subscribing. I love Jane Austen and have a good sense of the ridiculous so was attracted by the blurb, but this book is puerile. The prose is cod 18c and woefully stilted, the characters are lifted from Austen but lack any of the depth that her masterly writing imparts. The sea monster motif is far from amusing,being clumsily bolted on to the plot with little contextual integrity. I am happy to suspend disbelief and enter an imaginary world, but that world has to have some credibility; this has none.

9 of 10 people found this review helpful

Megan

st génies, France

4/18/11

Overall

"OMG nerver again"

awfull, terrible, silly and so much more

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Laurence

PORTSMOUTH, United Kingdom

3/29/11

Overall

"All very silly"

What a travesty of a book. There was nothing to commend it and after struggling with the first part of the download I gave up. To be avoided.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Yazzie

9/4/16

Overall

Performance

Story

"sea monsters"

not as good as pride and prejudice and zoombies but worth a lister rather than reading it.

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

Faharis

2/13/16

Overall

Performance

Story

"Limp like a seacreature"

With Austen I like the movies but hate the books due to the passive voice and the slow pace. So I thought the addition of sea-monsters would obviously improve things. But it didn't. It just didn't. One of only a handful of audibooks I've actually stopped reading before completion.

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

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